Over the years, I’ve swooned about Austen-linked real estate coming up for sale or rent. Perhaps I have said things like, “If money were no object, I’d buy that place in a minute.”
I was kidding, but Canadian Tara Rout apparently isn’t. Rout, an Edmonton lawyer who has written Austen fanfic under the name Melanie Kerr, has launched an insanely ambitious Kickstarter appeal to buy Luckington Court, the stately Wiltshire home that played Longbourn in the BBC’s iconic 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
By July 10, Rout hopes to raise $8.5 million, enough to buy the eight-bedroom house -- originally marketed at £9 million ($12.1 million) but now marked down to £5.75 million ($7.7 million) -- and redecorate it so that it precisely resembles the Bennets' Longbourn of the beloved miniseries. Then she plans to turn it into a sort of real-life Austenland: a place where Janeites can – for a price, of course – sip afternoon tea, dance at a ball, stay overnight, or host the ultimate Jane Austen wedding.
Rout has some relevant experience: In Edmonton, she runs a company called Regency Encounters, which has staged local Jane Austen balls for several years, along with what Rout calls, in a radio interview, “epic nerd parties” centered on the Harry Potter and Dungeons & Dragons fandoms.
It would be delightful to see this dream come to fruition but, frankly, Rout’s hopes seem pretty close to delusional. As of last year, reportedly, less than one percent of Kickstarter's campaigns had raised more than $1 million, and only eight had ever raised as much as Rout is seeking.
By yesterday, Rout had attracted pledges of just over $15,000 from nineteen backers, and most of that appears to have come from a single person who opted for the $10,000 wedding-package premium. She's got a lo-o-ong way to go. Still, I guess you never know. Christmas wedding at Longbourn, anyone?